The Postal Dude
The Postal Dude is the main protagonist, and title character, of the POSTAL series. The Postal Dude is ranked in the top 10 most brutal video game characters ever made. As such, he is very controversial, while in return RWS replies that they did not create the Dude as a violent person in the first place, and leave players free to decide if he will be good or evil. Personality The Dude appears as calm and easy-going, but can be sociopathic and cynical when pushed to the edge. He often states he doesn't like video games after killing people, however he is seen supporting them, since at one point he sets up a petition to "Make Whiney Congressmen Play Violent Video Games." He wears his trademark leather trench coat and sunglasses at all times, though he can wear various outfits that will affect how the people of Paradise view him and will affect the HUD with unique designs as well. POSTAL and POSTAL Redux The Dude made his debut appearance in POSTAL. Here, very little is known of the Dude, only that he's apparently been evicted from his home (there's a moving van parked in front of his home) and that he's been driven insane as a result, but no real back story evolves during the game. The manual, however, does mention that the Dude believes the town to be under some sort of madness outbreak and that it's up to him to stop it, as well as the in-game diary of the Dude ranting about "cleansing" the Earth. By the end of both the original and Redux, the Dude suffers a mental breakdown, collapses, and is contained in a mental asylum after either attempting a school shooting (original) or gatecrashing what appears to be his own funeral (Redux). Redux's Rampage ending implies that his condition is beginning to worsen, seemingly locked in an "endless struggle against himself". The Postal Dude is never seen directly, only being seen as the player's sprite in gameplay and in the surreal images that play before each level, although his image is heavily distorted. His true identity is thrown into further chaos as of POSTAL Redux, which reveals the existence of multiple Postal Dudes; four of which band together to break the Campaign/Rampage Dude out of the Asylum in the Co-op ending. This is thrown further upon the completion of the Super Delivery campaign, where the Co-Op Dudes (red, blue, yellow, and green coats) lie dead at the grave in that campaign's version of "The End". By default, he wears a red trench coat in the original disk version of the game and a black coat in later re-releases and as the default color in Redux. The only clear image found of him is in concept art and a photograph that appeared in POSTAL's advertising campaign. In the photograph, the Postal Dude differs greatly from his later appearances, being a troubled young man with a mop haircut wielding an AK47. In the Steam Trading Card Artwork, Profile Backgrounds, and the original POSTAL's "about" section on RWS' website, he uses his POSTAL 2 appearance with a plain blue T-shirt, longer and more unkempt hair, and fingerless gloves. The Demon In the game files of the original POSTAL, the voice files of Rick Hunter are labelled as "Demon". The reason for this is that the voice heard in the game was originally not supposed to be the Postal Dude, but for a schizophrenic voice in his head implying either psychological instability, demonic possession, or both. The grunts and moans were separate voiceovers done by Vince Desi. When POSTAL 2 came around, the devs simply decided to keep Rick Hunter as the voice of the Postal Dude. In a 2007 interview on the now-defunt Postal Nation, it was explained as reinventing the Dude's character between the two games, and a natural decision to have Hunter voice the role in full. This continued in POSTAL Redux, with the Postal Dude's grunts now being replaced with ones recorded by Rick Hunter. Hunter had also re-recorded all of the Dude's lines. POSTAL 2 In POSTAL 2, he has moved out from his original home to the town of Paradise after accepting a job at the Running With Scissors video game developer company. He lives in a shabby trailer in a small neighborhood with his pet Champ the dog and his unnamed, bitchy wife, who continuously gives him orders and forces him to do various annoying errands. Monday When the Postal Dude goes to the RWS headquarters on Monday, he is informed by Vince Desi that he is fired. This and a video game-protest mob by the Parents for Decency began his second reign of terror. After getting his check, the Dude then proceeds to go to cash the check in the Fee of America bank. Just as the Postal Dude is cashing his check, a group of bank robbers arrives to commit a stick-up. However, if the Dude breaks into the money bin to get the money from there, an alarm will sound and he will have his first clash against the Police. After cashing the check, the Postal Dude goes to Lucky Ganesh to get some milk. Once he returns home, the Dude informs his wife the Bitch that he's "on some kind of vacation", so she decides to get him do more things for her for the rest of the week. Tuesday On Tuesday, the Postal Dude decides it's time to confess his sins, so he goes to the Church to be forgiven by a priest. Meanwhile, a group of Taliban terrorists arrive and commit their attack, breaking into the Church, so the Dude must face a large group of them in order to escape. After that, the Postal Dude must get eight signatures for a petition to "make whiny congressmen play violent video games", which makes him deal with lots of rude civilians and prompts him to threaten them if they refuse to sign. The Postal Dude must then go to the Library to return a book his wife has been reading. However, once he has returned it, a group of book protestors break into the library, burn the building down, and attack everyone within it, including the Dude. He must find himself a way out of the library and fight many book protestors. Finally, he has to go to the Paradise Mall, where Gary Coleman has arrived to give away autographed copies of his book. Once there, the Postal Dude gets his copy. Suddenly, the Police arrives to arrest Gary, initiating a fight against him and his crew. Wednesday On Wednesday, the Postal Dude decides to go to the Cemetery and piss on his father's tombstone. When he does so, he is knocked unconscious by a group of rednecks who take him to the Brewery. When the Postal Dude wakes up in the Brewery, he realizes the rednecks have removed his own clothes and made him wear a Gimp Suit, so the Postal Dude adds one more errand that is going to Money Shot Laundromat to pick up his laundry. After fighting a large group of rednecks and getting out of the Brewery, people everywhere make fun of him until he gets his clothes back. Wednesday is also Election Day, and Cock Asian is hosting the elections. Also during Wednesday, the Dude goes to the Forest to get a Xmas Tree. Given that it's July, the trees are much cheaper. After looking at several trees, the Postal Dude finally chooses the right one, but summons rednecks to attack him once more. Thursday On Thursday, the Postal Dude notes that the weeds in his garden are getting too tall, so he needs something extra strong and decides to buy a Napalm Launcher at the Napalm Factory. Once he manages to get the launcher, a factory worker vomits on a power box presumably operating the machinery at the factory, causing a major disruption in the production process, resulting in a major explosion that destroys part of the factory. The Dude must find a way to get out of the factory via alternative ways. Also on Thursday, Krotchy has arrived at Paradise Mall, so the Dude must get a Krotchy Doll. When he arrives at Toyz 'n tha Hood, Krotchy tells him that all of the available Krotchy dolls are sold out, but the Postal Dude breaks into the store's back room anyway, and manages to get a doll from the storage. This calls the Police into the store in an attempt to arrest him. After defeating the police and getting out of the back room, the Postal Dude has to confront Krotchy himself. During that same day, the Postal Dude wants to get some steaks for the Psychotic Friends Network BBQ he's planning to attend, so he goes to Meat World. However, there is no one attending in the butchery, so he goes to the back room, where he discovers some Butchers triturating people alive in a grinder. The butchers attack the Postal Dude for discovering them and entering into the back room. Once the Dude gets the steaks, the police enters the place and tries to arrest the Dude again for breaking into Meat World and stealing steaks. Finally, the Postal Dude must go to the Police Station to pay a Traffic Citation. Eventually, the Postal Dude returns to his Trailer and fires the Napalm Launcher at the carpet. Friday On Friday, the Postal Dude goes to the Junkyard to get an alternator to fix his broken car. Once he gets the alternator, a tower crushes over a fence containing some dogs, blocking the exit and letting the dogs out out which attack him until he exits the junkyard. On the same day, he gets a note that says there is a package for him, so he goes to the Parcel Center. However, when a Carrier gets it for the Dude, it explodes, making the carriers attack the Dude in retaliation. Friday is also Uncle Dave's birthday, and the Postal Dude wants to give him a Birthday Gift, so he proceeds to go to the Compound, where Uncle Dave's "party" is taking place. The "party" is revealed to be the siege of the compound by the ATF. The Postal Dude manages to enter the compound and give Uncle Dave his gift, and in that very same moment the ATF finally manages to break into the compound, starting a massive gun battle against the Dude and Uncle Dave's religious cult. Since the beginning of Friday, the Postal Dude wants to desperately piss, and when he does so, it hurts, so he decides to go to the Clinic. Once there, the nurses tell him he has gonorrhea, and tell him to go and see Vend-A-Cure, a machine that after receiving a piss sample from the Dude, gives him some Gonorrhea Medicine to cure him. After completing all the errands of Friday, the Paradise Times releases a special edition that announces the beginning of Apocalypse. During the Apocalypse, there is a sudden outbreak of violence and all people in Paradise are armed, fighting each other, and will immediately attack the Dude even if he isn't carrying a weapon. After the Dude manages to go back to his trailer, the Bitch asks him if he remembered her Rocky Road, an item she requested him to get for her since Monday, but that was never included as an errand. The Postal Dude then proceeds to shoot himself in the head so he can stop listening to his wife. Apocalypse Weekend On Saturday, the Postal Dude wakes up in the Hospital, where he receives a note from the Bitch telling him she has decided to leave him. He also receives notes saying that his trailer has been taken away, and that Champ is in the Dog Pound to be "put asleep" on Sunday. Without any money, the Postal Dude proceeds to sell a sample of his semen, but as he does that, an experiment with cats goes out of control, with the scientists creating dervish cats. The dervish cats kill the scientists and escape from their laboratory. The head shot also gave the Postal Dude hallucinations, in which he sees distorted versions of the places he is in, and with Gary Coleman-esque creatures attacking him, some of them having diseased cow heads instead of their own. These hallucinations will appear for the rest of the weekend from time to time. The Postal Dude eventually leaves the hospital, and feels really hungry, so he proceeds to go to the Greasy Panda restaurant in Lower Paradise. Once there, a group of zombies appear and begin to attack everyone including the Dude, who has to destroy twenty of them. After doing so, a police officer arrives and tells him he likes his style, and hires him to kill twenty-one cows infected with mad cow disease. Halfway through his mission, however, he is attacked by a group of vegetarians. After killing the cows and defeating the vegetarians, the policeman reappears and assigns the Postal Dude the Super-fun Pigeon Hunter Mission, which is never shown due to budgetary reasons as told by Vince Desi in a FMV cutscene. The Postal Dude then appears in Lower Paradise again, where he is contacted by Vince Desi, who rehires him and asks him to enter the headquarters of Bullfish Interactive, a rival company to RWS and to retrieve a Gold Master CD of Postal 2. The Dude enters the publisher office complex and battles the Bullfish Interactive security staff, until he arrives to CEO Phraud Hogslop's office. Hogslop refuses to give him the gold master, so the Postal Dude fights him in a boss battle. After defeating Hogslop, the Postal Dude is invited by Vince to go to his house for a party with the Postal Babes. On Sunday, the Postal Dude wakes up after hearing some shots, and he discovers a horde of zombies attacking Vince's house. The Postal Dude must destroy eighty of them, in which he accesses an armory full of weaponry downstairs, and after leaving Vince's house, he is addressed by Rosco, a Mexican running an elephant business. Rosco tells the Postal Dude that if he helps him to kill twenty-one elephants at the Elephant Preserve and get their legs to make Elephant Foot waste baskets for children, he will give him some money as well as a ride into Lower Paradise. However, after killing the elephants, the Postal Dude receives a new phone call from Vince, who needs some help with the marketing and asks him to do something that can make the media say the "competition's toasted". The Postal Dude decides to enter the Terrorist Training Camp to get something to create a nice explosion, and after fighting a whole army of terrorists, he discovers that the terrorists have no massive weapons at all. In that very same time, the National Guard arrives, attack the camp, and arrests everyone in there, including the Postal Dude. The Dude is taken to the Military Base, where he is forced to battle a large group of soldiers until he finds a thermo-nuclear warhead and escapes the place. The Postal Dude returns to Lower Paradise, where a terrorist is leading a meeting attended by other terrorists, vegetarians, zombies, and even Gary Coleman himself. The terrorist claims they are being oppressed, so they start a fight against civilians, the National Guard, and the Postal Dude. The Dude enters Bullfish Interactive's publisher office complex, only to discover it's being invaded by zombies. The Postal Dude places the warhead in Hogslop's office. The wall behind Hogslop's desk has been destroyed and reveals the Dog Pound. The Postal Dude goes to the pound to rescue Champ, but discovers that the place has been taken over by rednecks, who are using trained cats and dogs in gimp suits to kill people. The Postal Dude confronts a large group of rednecks, dogs, and dervish cats, only to discover Champ is missing. A final group of dogs have cornered the Postal Dude, but suddenly Champ breaks into the room from a glass ceiling, and single-handedly kills all the dogs. The Postal Dude and Champ then proceed to leave Paradise before the warhead explodes, but they must cross the Bridge and find the trailer first. The bridge is also invaded by zombies, and the National Guard also arrives to confront the Postal Dude, with some jets even bombing the bridge. After crossing the bridge, the Postal Dude sees his trailer in the distance, but Mike J the "Kosher Mad Cow Zombie" appears and has a final boss battle with the Postal Dude. After defeating "Kosher Mad Cow Zombie" Mike J, the Dude and Champ get into his car, and are seen driving away from Paradise just as the warhead explodes, detonating the entire Paradise in the process. The Postal Dude is last heard saying "I regret nothing" as he drives away from Paradise together with Champ in his trailer. Paradise Lost However, during the Postal Dude's escape, Champ sees a stray cat and gives chase. Thus, the Postal Dude turns his car around, heading back toward Paradise despite the Nuclear Fallout. Unfortunately, his head wound starts acting up causing him to crash his car and fall in the a radiation induced coma where he dreams of a "future gone wrong". He awakens eleven years later from a radiation induced coma, and sets out to find Champ in the ruins of Paradise. Postal III Following the destruction of Paradise in Postal 2, the Postal Dude moves to Paradise's sister town Catharsis in Postal III. The Pre-Path Being unemployed and broke, he gets a job at the local porn shop, working as a cleaner. After getting attacked by angry hockey moms the Dude tries a different job collecting cats for a crazy homeless guy. While collecting the cats he gets attacked by angry Chinese people trying to use the cats for sushi. As soon as that didn't work out for him, he got a job protecting playboy star Jennifer Wallcott and for a second time gets attacked by Hockey Moms. He fails at the job and does not earn money for it. The Postal Dude then goes to get a cash loan at which point the office gets taken over by Ecologists. At that point he can choose to help the cops or the ecologists and the story progresses as you continue from there to a good, bad, or pacifist ending. Regardless of the ending, the Dude's final words in the game are some variation of "I regret nothing!". The Good Path The Postal Dude joins the Police force, learns how to arrest people, goes on patrol stopping petty crime, has to protect Uwe Bowl from nerds (or not), take down crazy hockey moms in an arcade, prevent illegal Mexican Al Queda from sneaking over the US border, stop crazed lab animals at a cosmetic lab, arresting AL (leader of the ecotologists), protect a gay rodeo, protect the mayor from Al Queda on a segway before having to kill him, Al, and Osama bin Laden at the Dave Land Amusement park. Unfortunately, the Venezuelan army attacks Catharsis with Hugo Chavez blocking the Dude's escape. After killing Chavez, the Dude becomes a national hero, and eventually, the President of the United States, with Jen as his First Lady, and Champ as his Vice President. The Insane Path Should the Dude join the Ecotologist, he'll have to pick apples before having to take on Al Queda, take Champ to obedience school, repo segways, sneak out the Mayor's Malaysian slave boy out of city hall before the paparazzi see him, release animals from a cosmetics lab, transport explosive toys to Krotchy, sneak drugs across the border via footballs, escape prison with Al, kill Krotchy and take his suit, clean up crap at a gay rodeo, and take out Mexi-sushi douchebags, before escaping Catharsis after Mayor Chomo's speech is ruined. Ultimately, he is caught by the United States military, and is executed alongside Champ. He tries to weasel his way into Heaven by detailing his story to St. Peter, but is rejected, and sent to hell for his crimes. Pacifist Ending Should the game be completed without killing anyone (apart from zombies and bosses), the Postal Dude is shown on a talk show with his new wife, Jen, and Champ where he talks about his new book and highly publicized lottery win. Paradise Lost Due to the events of Paradise Lost, the events of Postal III (regardless of the ending) have been retconned out of existence as nothing more than a dream of the Postal Dude's, with this version of the Postal Dude becoming a separate entity, known in the credits as "Alternate Postal Dude". POSTAL 4 Years after the events of Paradise Lost, the Postal Dude has finally left Paradise and has ended up in a new town called Edensin in search of a new home. Monday Whilst relaxing in a gas station bathroom, the Dude's car, trailer, and belongings were stolen, leaving him and Champ close penniless. With nothing more than a bathrobe, his dog, and $50, the Dude decides that he needs a job to earn some money if he wishes to move forward. The Dude creates a cardboard beggar sign and must deal with much rudeness and snide remarks from the citizens of Edensin whilst begging for a job. One citizen eventually directs The Dude to see a "Mr. Bellow" at the Employment Agency. He's then given the opportunity for 3 lower-standard jobs: a prison guard, a sewer worker, and a wildlife relocator. After completing each of these tasks, he then makes his way to a one-star motel on the west side of Edensin, and books a room for the night. Trivia *The Postal Dude's age has never been revealed, though the POSTAL concepts from 1996 mentions that he is 27 years old. A Postal Nation interview also confirms him being in his late thirties to early forties. *The Postal Dude is also featured with longer hair in the promotional artwork for POSTAL. *In the POSTAL 2 beta shown at E3 2002, the Postal Dude had no glasses, exposing his reddish eyes, and he was much taller and thin. Later depictions (POSTAL 2 onwards) of the Dude gave him green eyes. *In the POSTAL games, he is called the "Postal Dude" since he is the representative character for the series. In the film, he was given the nickname of the "Postal Dude" by the people of Paradise because they pinned him as going postal at the Little Germany festival and causing a massacre, when in fact Al Qaeda were largely responsible for the death toll. *The Postal Dude appears in Oh...Sir!! The Insult Simulator ''as a guest playable character, alongside Serious Sam and Lo Wang. *The Postal Dude is the only human character that cannot be gibbed or dismembered in ''Postal III. Gallery Postaldudeconcept.jpg|Artwork of the Dude in POSTAL POSTAL red.jpg|Postal Dude's original appearance from the box art Postaldude_original.jpg|Ditto; without the red filter POSTAL-TDudeSr.png|The Dude's in the Air Force Base loading screen in the original POSTAL POSTALRedux-TDudeSr.png|The Dude's appearance in the Air Force Base loading screen in Redux Postal_dude_redux.png|Render of the Postal Dude's model in Redux Postal Dude.jpg|Artwork of the Postal Dude in POSTAL 2 Postal Dude stp.jpg|Full-body artwork of the Dude in POSTAL 2 AlphaDude.jpg|Early version of the Dude in POSTAL 2 Postal III beta dude.jpg|Render of the Postal Dude's beta model in Postal III, made by Josh Leichliter p3_dude_render.jpg|Full-body render of the Postal Dude's character model in Postal III p3_dude_mugshot.jpg|Mugshot of the Dude from Postal III's intro beta_dude_2017.jpg|Full-body render of the Postal Dude's alpha/beta character model in Postal III p3_dude_transparent.png|Promotional artwork of the Postal Dude from Postal III Postal 2 Game Land Magazine.jpg|Early version the of Postal Dude from a Russian magazine. WCCFpostal4.jpg|Artwork of the Dude in POSTAL 4: No Regerts (also parodies Big Lebowski) P4 Dude.png|Render of the Postal Dude's character model in POSTAL 4 External links *The Postal Dude at the Internet Movie Database. Category:Individuals Category:Characters